Security specialist Jebel Krong has only killed once, a record that soon goes out of the window in this punchy and very violent short novel from the Essex hard man of science fiction, Neal Asher. Jebel is present at the first meeting between humankind and the alien Prador, an encounter that ends in carnage as it becomes clear that the aliens have no intention of peaceful engagement. Moria Salem is a researcher into the means of virtually instantaneous space travel on which the human galactic empire known as the Polity is built. Promoted beyond her abilities, she has just been cerebrally augmented by a rogue interface surgeon whose story is unfortunately peripheral to this novel. Jebel and Moria eventually come together as unlikely champions in what becomes inter-species war on a vast scale. Asher's aliens are unremittingly monstrous, not only developing a taste for human flesh but toying with their victims before eating them alive, limb by limb. But Prador Moon is not black and white: the whites are shades of grey and the blacks are midnight dark.